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Posts: 20703
Tue, 13-Feb-07 10:22:18
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Quote:Maintaining the accuracy of any document as ancient and as large as the Torah is very challenging even under the best of circumstances. But consider that throughout history, Jewish communities were subject to widespread persecutions and exile. Over the last 2,000 years, Jews have been spread to the four corners of the world, from Yemen to Poland, from Australia to Alaska. Other historical factors make the accurate transmission of the Torah all the more difficult. For example, the destruction of the Temple 1,900 years ago saw the dissolution of the Sanhedrin, the Jewish central authority which traditionally would unify the Jewish people in case of any disagreements.Let's investigate the facts as we have them today. If we collect the oldest Torah scrolls and compare them, we can see if any garbling exists, and if so, how much.How many letters are there in the Torah? 304,805 letters (or approximately 79,000 words).If you were to guess, how many letters of these 304,805 do you think are in question? (Most people guess anywhere from 25 to 1,000 letters.)The fact is, that after all the trials and tribulations, communal dislocations and persecutions, only the Yemenite Torah scrolls contain any difference from the rest of world Jewry. For hundreds of years, the Yemenite community was not part of the global checking system, and a total of nine letter-differences are found in their scrolls.These are all spelling differences. In no case do they change the meaning of the word. For example, how would you spell the word "color?" In America, it's spelled C-O-L-O-R. But in England, it's spelled with a "u," C-O-L-O-U-R. Such is the nature of the few spelling differences between Torah scrolls today. The results over thousands of years are remarkable!But how impressive is this compared to other similar documents, such as the Chrstian Bible? (Both books contain approximately the same number of words.)First of all, which would you expect to be more successful in preserving the accuracy of a text?The Chrstian Bible. For several reasons.First, the Christian Bible is about 1,700 years younger than the Torah. Second, the Chrstians haven't gone through nearly as much exile and dislocation as the Jews. Third, Chrstianity has always had a central authority (the Vatican) to ensure the accuracy of their text.What are the results? The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, a book written to prove the validity of the New Testament, says: " A study of 150 Greek [manuscripts] of the Gospel of Luke has revealed more than 30,000 different readings... It is safe to say that there is not one sentence in the (sic Greek) Testament in which the [manuscript] is wholly uniform." Other scholars report there are some 200,000 variants in the existing manuscripts of the New Testament, representing about 400 variant readings which cause doubt about textual meaning; 50 of these are of great significance.The Torah has nine spelling variants -- with absolutely no effect on the meaning of the words. The Chrstian (GT) has over 200,000 variants and in 400 instances the variants change the meaning of the text. The point of course is not to denigrate Chrstianity. Rather, this comparison demonstrates the remarkable accuracy of the Jewish transmission of Torah.
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